This year’s Yonex East of Scotland Championships were again held at the Oriam, Scotland’s Sports Performance Centre, at Heriot-Watt University. We were very pleased to have an extremely large entry in the tournament which resulted in a large number of extremely competitive games on Saturday. As a result of this, it was necessary to reschedule some of the men’s and women’s doubles matches to Sunday morning. Unfortunately, it did also mean that we needed to cancel the consolation events in the level doubles events. There were some great performances from Lothian players throughout the weekend with the highlights being the performances of Basia Grodynska and Ganesh Balaji.
We were delighted that Scotland’s number one singles player, Callum Smith, competed in the tournament and he regained the men’s singles title that he won in 2020 by defeating the second seed Ganesh Balaji convincingly in the final. Ganesh had earlier battled through an epic 58 minute semi final with Finlay Jack, winning 21-19 in the third game. Basia Grodynska retained her women’s singles title, winning for the third consecutive time by defeating Sophie Ford 21-15, 21-11 in the final.
The men’s doubles event was packed full of close matches and the final lived up to expectations with a match which ebbed and flowed throughout. It looked as though top seeds Kenneth Cheung and Callum Crangle would take the title when they led 20-16 in the third game but Calum Flockhart and Angus Meldrum dug in and won 6 consecutive points to run out winners by 22-20 in the third game.
In the women’s doubles, last year’s champions Kirsten Berry and Sophie Ford were seeded 2 this year but successfully defended their title. They were pushed very hard in the final by Jennifer Lafferty and Emma Donald but ultimately, they proved too strong by taking the third and deciding game 21-11.
In the mixed doubles final, top seeds Robert Dunn and Kirsten Berry defeated last year’s champions Kenneth Cheung and Jodie Harris 21-13, 18-21, 21-12 to give Kirsten her second title of the day.
The consolation events for players who lost their first match in the main event, again provided some very competitive matches. The winners of the consolation events were:
Men’s singles – Euan Campbell
Women’s singles – Emma Donald
Mixed doubles – Andrew Reid and Rebecca Reid
Complete results from the tournament can be found at: Yonex East of Scotland Championships 2023
Prizes were presented by BADMINTONscotland President, Carolyn Young. Tournament Referee Colin Campbell thanked the Court Officials of Badminton Scotland, the staff at Oriam and the players for the excellent quality of play and their co-operation and sportsmanship throughout the weekend. He also expressed his thanks to Yonex for their ongoing and much appreciated support of the event. Lothian Group is also greatly indebted to Gannon Sports who once again provided the prizes for the consolation events.
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